


Seduction

by wayleska (princenarry)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Also brief Gordon and Leslie Mention, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bisexual Bruce Wayne, Bottom Jeremiah Valeska, Brief Jerome Valeska mentions, Brief Nygmapot, Cause Bruce Jeremiah Ed and Oswald could totally all be friends right???, College, Everyone Is Gay, Fluff and Smut, Funny Oswald Cobblepot, Gotham City - Freeform, He's suffered emotional trauma and a crappy family give him a break, Jeremiah has trouble expressing his feelings and emotions, M/M, Nerdiness, Pining, Romance, Seduction, Selina is the girl with curly hair lol, Shameless Smut, Shower Sex, Top Bruce Wayne, cosmo magazine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 01:17:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17457833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princenarry/pseuds/wayleska
Summary: After Jeremiah happened upon a Cosmo Magazine Article about tips to seduce your man, he decides to employ a few to finally seduce his best friend, Bruce. While he feels ridiculous using these tips from a woman's magazine, Jeremiah's willing to try just about anything to finally get with Bruce. Takes place in a College AU with Edward and Oswald as Jeremiah's roommates.





	Seduction

Move #2: Make Sure he sees you undress with sexy looks

Jeremiah doesn't arch his back all sexy-like when he removes his hoodie--oh so slowly. Instead, he sort of hunches, he supposes. 

It gives the suggestion of abs, you know? Not that he rehearsed this in the mirror last night or anything, because that would be appallingly pathetic, but Jeremiah knows his own doughy form well enough to  _ know _ that arching makes him look maybe a touch too feminine, and yes, he wants to seduce Bruce, but there are lines he won't cross.

Sadly, following Cosmo’s how to seduce a man tips apparently not one of them.

Jeremiah is currently trying out Move #2:

_ “When Leslie’s in the mood for lovemaking or for reminding me how sexy she is, she makes sure I see her undress. After raising her skirt above her thighs, she removes her stockings, running her hands along her calves as she pulls them down. Then she slowly unbuttons her blouse, giving me sexy looks between each button. Finally, she undoes her bra and cups her breasts as the straps fall off her shoulders. It makes me nuts.”—James, 38 _

It makes sense, Jeremiah guesses. He's been waiting—downright fucking  _ pining _ —for Bruce to show a hint of interest in him, and that's stupid. Jeremiah gets that now. That's not how people work. They fear stuff, like rejection and humiliation and general hurt, and who knows? Maybe Bruce is only into girls, and Jeremiah can't—he can't focus on that.

He's removing his shirt.

In a borderline obscene fashion, mind you.

Jeremiah balls the cuffs of the sleeves in his fists first. You know. So when he lifts his arms it'll ride up and expose the puny trail of hair that extends from bellybutton to waistband. 

Bruce will see that. And the sort-of-abs. Jeremiah knows he will because before he did the sleeve-cuff fisting, he strategically placed himself front-and-center of the television Bruce is watching.

Jeremiah lifts and lifts and lifts his arms.

Bends an elbow back.

Grabs the collar of the sweater.

(Bruce is craning his head to see around him.)

Pulls it skyward.

Over his head.

Darkness, he hopes Bruce is watching; Jeremiah can feel the air on his bare belly.

Wrestles with the sweater.

Pauses.

Panics when he realizes he's maybe stuck with his elbows in the air like this.

Flails forward.

Stumbles over a shoe (goddammit Oswald).

Bends over, head down.

Rips it off.

Huffs.

Bruce barks a laugh at the television, which just so happens to be showing that fucking  _ Doritos _ commercial with the ugly-ass, flat-faced dog.

Jeremiah stalks to the sofa and hurls his shred sweater into a corner and sulks.

 

Move #10: Walk Sexy for Him

Okay so here's the thing. Jeremiah. Doesn't really have hips in his opinion or maybe he just doesn’t know how to move him. He imagines he has this general  _ area _ where his torso disappears into his lower body, but other than that... he has no sway. 

This, he  _ did _ practice, and sure, he's mortified okay? It's mortifying. It's emasculating, and it's  _ fucking stupid _ .

That said, Jeremiah has a decent ass, so you know? He's got to work with what he's got. When Oswald and Ed go on a beer run, Jeremiah practices. 

He pops from left to right, and while no one can see him—Jeremiah knows that logically, but still, Jeremiah blushes. Swaying from side to side in the dorm room he shares with Ed and Oswald.

Bending over, looking over his shoulder at a mirror.

Okay okay. Jeremiah has a decent ass.

A great ass.

The following day he's walking with Bruce to their next class, and Jeremiah thinks  _ this is it _ . It doesn't have to be a big deal. It doesn't have to really be... like, dramatic, right? Because Jeremiah figures since he never does this, even the smallest movement will be obvious. He won't have to go  _ all out _ .

So he accelerates until he's right in front of Bruce and grabs at the straps to his bag, and with a gulp, Jeremiah  _ sways _ . 

Well. It's probably a sway.

At the very least, a swagger, and at most... well. Jeremiah doesn't want to go there, so he does it just a little. Just enough. Bruce will notice, he has to.

When Jeremiah peeks over his shoulder though, he finds Bruce rifling through the bag at his hip, brows furrowed in concentration. 

And so Jeremiah keeps at it, right? Because he has to look up eventually. Only Bruce doesn't, and Jeremiah wants to grab that fucking bag from Bruce's shoulder and dump the contents everywhere so that Bruce will just  _ find whatever he wants _ and for the love of god,  _ look at Jeremiah's ass already _ .

They reach the building before that happens and Jeremiah spends most of Advanced Chemistry wondering if he should try again, or give it up.

Move #6: Play Footsie and Put Your Feet in His Lap

Jeremiah is now officially grossed out by Tip #6. He doesn't judge others for having a foot fetish, but this is... this is too much. It must be too much.

It happens on a whim.

Bruce and Jeremiah are in the cafe eating breakfast. 

Jeremiah still hasn't slept and Bruce looks like he did, but not nearly enough. Bruce is also doing that thing where he perfectly separates his eggs from his toast and from his bacon, at least two inches apart on every side.

It's just so goddamn anal. 

Anal and fucking  _ endearing _ and  _ who else in this world does that _ , and Jeremiah just has the strongest impulse to mess it all up and grab Bruce's ridiculous hair and smash his lips to his face and  _ what even is that? _

Jeremiah just wants to be all over him.

Just like that.

Just because of Bruce's anally endearing food OCD.

So Jeremiah thinks,  _ fuck it _ , right? Might as well stay this course, what could it hurt?

Jeremiah's foot searches for a long time for Bruce's. He slouches down and back to give himself better reach, and he's toeing all over under the table just looking for Bruce's foot, but it's like—

Jeremiah can't find it.

He lifts his foot and sort of sweeps because Bruce's feet  _ do exist _ , somewhere, under this table, and if Jeremiah can just catch one, or ascertain a general location of its proximity, then he could probably—

"Ow!" Bruce jumps, dropping his fork, which splatters in his eggs and sends them covering the toast. 

"The fuck?" he growls, brows pulled angrily together, hand rubbing his shin.

Jeremiah swallows guiltily and straightens from his slouched position. "Um. Sorry. I was... I dropped a napkin and I was trying to—"

"Bend down and get it, Jeremiah, Christ." Bruce's eyes shift to his disheveled tray, going wide in horror when they survey the scrambled egg situation. 

He lifts his palms, gestures to it. "Look at this. How am I going to eat this now?" With an air of  _ my scrambled eggs have ruined my entire life _ , Bruce stands, snatches the tray from the table and stalks away.

His hips? They definitely have a sway-like quality. And Bruce's ass is more than sufficient, it's—

Jeremiah spends the rest of his morning in the shower.

Move #12: Intentionally brush your breasts against his arm.

Well, that's bullshit. Aside from Jeremiah's obvious lack of breasts, how would  _ that _ move seduce anyone? It's a little intrusive, and after the foot incident, Jeremiah doesn't think he could handle injuring Bruce with his entire chest.

Still.

With the  _ brushing _ .

Okay, Jeremiah does it more for himself than anything.

Bruce has this habit where he holds the door for people. For long periods of time, for people long stretches away.

But Bruce especially does this for Jeremiah. All the time. Like Jeremiah's some delicate little flower who needs that kind of treatment. It's... well, it doesn't  _ bother _ Jeremiah per se, but it has always seemed strange.

Nevertheless, Jeremiah can use this to his advantage, he suddenly realizes one night as they enter the dorms.

Bruce's talking... about... something, he can't expect Jeremiah to process words when Bruce's hips are doing  _ that thing _ again, and how come it's like practically natural for him? Not fair.

Anyway, Bruce's talking. There are words. And sounds. And then there's a door and Bruce is holding it, still doing that talking thing, and since Jeremiah is trying to purposefully  _ not _ get caught eyeing Bruce's more-than-sufficient ass, his eyes snap up, and he thinks,  _ why not _ ?

He skirts past Bruce, but at that crucial second where they're parallel, Jeremiah takes a deep breath and his chest puffs out and it  _ brushes _ Bruce's side, and it could be fine and good, except.

They maintain that eye contact, and what could have been a perfectly natural not-breast brushing is totally awkward—so awkward that Jeremiah almost pauses, because Bruce is staring and Jeremiah is staring and his puffed chest is all mashed against Bruce's shoulder because now that Jeremiah really stops and takes notice, he realizes his  _ brush _ is more of a  _ press _ , and  _ fuck his life _ , it was not supposed to go down this way.

All Jeremiah can think is _ABORT._ _ABORT._ _ABORT._

So Jeremiah maybe over-corrects by jumping away, and Bruce's grip on the door slips and it ends up smacking Jeremiah in the shoulder.

"Sorry!" Bruce says, prying the door back, and Jeremiah keeps his chin ducked, eyes to the floor as they climb the stairs.

Jeremiah lets Bruce lead.

 

Move #5: Bring Him Shopping for Lingerie With You.

Jeremiah wants to know what moron wrote this crap, but also why does he continue to read it. Ignoring for one second that lingerie would never apply to this situation, no man feels anything but awkward and miserable inside of a lingerie store. Come on.

Jeremiah obviously clearly cannot take Bruce with him to shop for lingerie. For one, Jeremiah's version of lingerie is probably his pair of polyester boxers and he can hear Bruce judging him for it from miles away.

Secondly, too strong. 

Jeremiah wants something a little more subtle,  _ especially _ since the unfortunate chest-brush-door-eye-contact- _ ABORT _ event.

Jeremiah can't prove that Bruce has been ignoring him since that happened, but Jeremiah is definitely making himself scarce.

That's what dudes do when shit gets awkward. They avoid. Which is a problem, you know? Because Jeremiah is in the  _ friend zone _ , and if he's being honest, sometimes he puts Bruce in his own  _ friend zone _ just out of pure habit, and Jeremiah needs to stop defaulting to that behavior.

Really.

He read it in Cosmo.

Okay so, Jeremiah needs to gradually make their relationship more intimate. He can't just expect to jump into this seduction crap headfirst. 

Toes need to be dipped. Barriers need broken. Eyes need to be met.

_ Fruit of the Loom _ cotton boxer-briefs needs to be purchased.

Jeremiah admits it's not his most brilliant idea, nor the most subtle, but what's sexy about plain boxer-briefs?

He sort of tricks Bruce into going. "I need new slacks," Jeremiah lies.

Bruce of course, ecstatic for any opportunity in which Jeremiah cares about his appearance, which he doesn’t mostly out of the fact that he can’t afford it;  for three seconds, says into the phone, "I'll pick you up at seven."

It starts off badly.

"Wal-Mart?" Bruce asks, face all screwed up in disgust. "Friends don't let friends buy formal wear from Wal-Mart, Jeremiah."

"They're cheap." Jeremiah likes using this—the upper-class guilt trip.

Bruce's face falls. "Are you—really? Because... I mean there are places where slacks are maybe fifty dollars…"

Jeremiah chokes, " _ Fifty dollars? _ " He has to remind himself, he's not really buying slacks.

Only now Jeremiah is realizing he  _ really has to buy slacks _ to make this work.

So they're going to Wal-Mart, dammit.

Bruce falls sadly behind Jeremiah when they walk through the automatic doors, which Jeremiah is super grateful for, by the way, lack of door-holding necessity and all.

They browse. Wrinkle their nose at ill-supervised children.

Bruce keeps his head low.

Jeremiah picks a pair of slacks without trying them on or really even looking at the size whatsoever. Just throws them over an arm and turns his eyes to the  _ other _ section.

"I need to go over here," Jeremiah says, shuffling past the racks of shirts and past the wall that divides the outerwear and the underwear.

There's underwear all over the place, and where there's underwear, there are obscenely large advertisements of  _ crotches _ . 

Jeremiah and Bruce are surrounded by bulging junk, as far as the eye can see. Look over there. Penis. Over here. Penis. Over there. More penis. Penis penis penis. Jeremiah is hot. His face. Sweltering. His neck. Burning. This sucks.

"You need socks?" Bruce guesses.

Yeah, Jeremiah could bail right now by agreeing to that. "I need underwear," he admits instead and turns just in time to see Bruce take a deep inhale.

"Okay."

Wordlessly, Bruce follows Jeremiah to the appropriate aisle. Boxer-briefs. All sorts of sizes. A lot of colors. Some shorter. Some longer. 

Jeremiah would never admit to it, but he's never bought underwear for himself. His mom mostly used to send it to him? Or once Ed bought some for him which was, weird. And it's not like he asks them to, they just do it, and so he never has to, and it's not like he  _ doesn't know _ what kind of underwear he prefers, it's just...

The selection.

It's overwhelming.

Jeremiah reaches out to just fiddle with a package and notices a tremor in his hand. He shoves it into his pocket and uses his other, steadier hand to just snatch whatever off a rack.

"You should get black," Bruce suddenly supplies, head tilted thoughtfully as he scans the selection.

Jeremiah's mouth sort of opens-closes-opens-closes before it can form a dumb, "Huh?"

"Black," Bruce clarifies, like  _ duh _ , and picks up a package. "You're like... what, a medium?"

Jeremiah gives something resembling a nod and takes the package when it's extended to him.

Bruce clears his throat, lifts his shoulders and gruffly asks, "Is that it?"

Jeremiah nods again and leads Bruce to the checkout, and if they're both staring pretty intently at the May issue of  _ Elle _ magazine, neither picks it up to flip through.

 

Move #6: Play Footsie and Put Your Feet in His Lap -  _ TAKE TWO _

He watches Bruce when they begin drinking. It's a Friday after finals and everyone's got that loose, fuck-it-all-everything-is-awesome attitude, especially Bruce. 

He sits on their sofa, wrapping his lips around the tall-necks that Oswald is steadily supplying, and laughing as they play video games like this-this sitting in Jeremiah, Ed, and Oswald’s dorm getting drunk and playing video games—is the most interesting and fun thing he could possibly be doing in college on a Friday night.

Jeremiah wants to put his feet in Bruce's lap. The footsie thing had been bad, Jeremiah knows that, okay? But this would be different. Jeremiah's feet would be in Bruce's lap, and Bruce's lap has a crotch.

Jeremiah stares at it.

Bruce's crotch, that is.

It's not bulging or anything. There's, like... that convenient curve zippers have that can serve as a scapegoat if an erection is ever spotted, but other than that, Bruce just has a pretty normal lap.

Jeremiah wants to put something in it. His feet. His head. His entire body. Whatever. Jeremiah can't stop thinking about it. Can't stop looking at it. Can't stop imagining Bruce's  _ thighs _ —God, Jeremiah bets Bruce has amazing thighs. Firm. And they're spread. Just a bit. Enough room to wedge a beer bottle safely between while Bruce takes the game controller.

Jeremiah toes off his shoes and inspects his socks and decides to leave them on because what if he has smelly gross feet?

He looks at Bruce's lap.

He has to wait for Bruce's turn to end so that Bruce will take away the beer bottle and Jeremiah can get a  _ go _ signal. So Jeremiah begins the preliminary preparations by reclining on the sofa, back to the arm, one knee in the air, the other foot flat on the ground. 

Jeremiah watches Bruce's face—the way his tongue presses into his cheek every time his car on the screen takes a turn, and the way his lips purse whenever he hits the railing.

Jeremiah goes next.

He takes the controller from Bruce, who's lost, and watches from his periphery as the beer bottle is lifted from between Bruce's ridiculous firm thighs.

Jeremiah doesn't give himself opportunity to analyze Bruce's reaction when he extends a leg, propping a foot on Bruce's thigh, because Jeremiah is watching the screen and kicking Ed's ass, which is a feat because all Jeremiah can really think about is how that thigh feels under his foot, and  _ it is _ firm, and also warm, and also, Bruce has soft pants.

Jeremiah ultimately loses.

When he passes the controller off to Oswald, Jeremiah uses the opportunity to lift his other foot and place it parallel to the other. On Bruce's thigh. Near his crotch.

Bruce doesn't react at all, just keeps watching the game and drinking his beer, and when the controller makes its rotation back to him, he puts his beer bottle on the floor and leans forward, elbows propped on his knees, and Jeremiah  _ dies _ , because when Bruce does that, he spreads his thighs a little more and Jeremiah's heels slide over sinewy muscle, and leave his feet  _ there _ , in the lap zone, cradled in the parenthesis of Bruce's posture.

All signs point to Bruce being  _ favorable _ of this.

Still, Jeremiah eventually allows his eyes to close and his brain to focus wholly on the warmth and vibrations of Bruce's body until he falls asleep.

He awakes the next morning, alone on the sofa, determined anew.

 

Move #3: Surprise him by turning on music and grabbing him for a dance.

"How would you dance?" Jeremiah asks Oswald one afternoon. "Like. With a guy, I mean. Is it like dancing with a girl, or are there additional parameters, like an ass-to-crotch ratio, or a common distance between two pelvises?"

Ed sort of blinks at this, confused. "Are you talking about me, you, or in general?"

"General."

"What's the intent of the dance?"

"Not overtly sexual in nature, but suggestive enough to indicate polite interest."

Ed hums, appearing thoughtful. "I suppose ass-to-crotch contact would be out then. Maybe something fun. Fast music. Enough distance that there's no direct bumping, but still close enough to—"

Jeremiah halts him with an eye-roll. "Exact distance, Ed. Give me this in terms of inches."

"Everyone's personal bubble is different," Ed explains. "It depends on the person. But I guess anything less than a foot is—"

"Got it." Jeremiah leaves before Ed can begin asking questions, and Jeremiah knows he will because Ed has got that  _ look _ on his face like the conversation is only twenty percent complete and requires further explanation.

No, thank you.

Jeremiah doesn't really intend to go through with it. He's not a dancer, okay? He's all long, awkward limbs and two left feet, and besides all that, Jeremiah's not sure he likes what that kind of performance would do to his reputation. 

What if he were expected to dance with  _ other _ people? Jeremiah doesn't want to dance with other people. He barely wants to dance with Bruce, it's just that dancing is a fairly vital resource when it comes to seduction, so.

Jeremiah doesn't rule it out.

Well.

While  _ sober _ , Jeremiah doesn't rule it out.

While  _ not sober _ , Jeremiah seems to think this is the greatest idea to ever pass through any mind ever, because his previously  _ sober _ and admittedly depressing and cynical mind had failed to realize that dancing with Bruce would put Jeremiah in desirably close proximity to him.

The artificial optimism of alcohol makes Jeremiah think that there could be eventual  _ rubbing _ .

_ God, _ Jeremiah wants rubbing.

He wants rubbing  _ so bad _ .

It's Oswald's birthday. If it were Ed's birthday, this wouldn't be happening, but Oswald wants the whole big party, all about me sort of deal, and so much liquor that Jeremiah thinks the door to the dorms should be decorated with big red circles and Pabst advertisements.

Really, Jeremiah plans to hide in his room, but Bruce appears to be having a good time or something, because he's drinking and talking to people and Jeremiah's not  _ jealous _ , but he does get a little frustrated that he's forced to tolerate all of this social crap just to say he's spending time with Bruce.

Jeremiah gets drunk.

Really, really shitfaced drunk.

And there's, like...  _ music _ . It's already there. People are dancing, so there's that. Jeremiah observes them, tries to mentally mimic their moves, and he thinks  _ I can totally pull this off _ and wonders what he was ever worried about, as  _ clearly _ , Jeremiah is a fantastic dancer. 

It's super easy. Move your hips. Put your hands in the air. Bend your knees every now and again. Patterns, rhythm, what's the difference?

Jeremiah's got this.

He spots Bruce's semi-fuzzy shape from the across the room. Jeremiah downs his beer in one go slams it on the counter, wipes his mouth with his sleeve, and stalks determinedly through the crowd. Bruce is talking to some  _ girl _ . Some stupid boring  _ look at me, I have a curly hair  _ girl.

"Bruce," Jeremiah greets when he reaches them, snatching his arm.

"What?" Bruce asks, appearing especially confused when Jeremiah begins dragging him away, toward the speakers with the bass and the one little vacancy on the floor where Jeremiah can be free to put Tip #3 to action.

Jeremiah turns to Bruce.

Steadies himself.

Makes eye contact.

No aborting, dammit.

Jeremiah dances.

He feels so  _ free _ . Moves his hips. Puts his hands in the air. Bends his knees once or twice. It's all about the pattern. A fractal. Or mosaic. Science. Do this, then do that. No conditionals. Just dancing. Less than a foot. Seduction.

Jeremiah  _ loves loves loves _ dancing.

"What are you doing?" Bruce's voice disturbs Jeremiah's zen-like dance trance.

Jeremiah takes a moment to pause, blinking. "I'm dancing."

Bruce's eyes go big. " _ That's _ dancing?" Then he laughs.

Right in Jeremiah's face.

Jeremiah insists, "I'm dancing just like everyone else," but Bruce disagrees.

"You're just doing this—" Bruce flails his arms and shakes his head. "—over and over again. That's not dancing, Jeremiah. It's spastic and possibly dangerous. Also really funny, though, so you shouldn't stop." Bruce laughs again, clapping him on the shoulder, all big smile, and crinkly eyes.

Jeremiah gets upset. He gets really, really mad. And embarrassed. 

He shrugs off Bruce's hand and gnashes his teeth. "I'm just curious, Bruce. Is it my dancing that's bad, or is it because I'm doing it with you?"

Bruce's smile falls, before quirking back up again, brows pulled together. "Were you, like... trying to dance with  _ me _ ?"

"Well I am  _ dancing _ , however badly, and I am doing it in front of you with a distance of fewer than twelve inches, so yeah, even a complete moron with a 1400 SAT score could determine that I'm dancing with him." Because Jeremiah got a perfect 1600, so anything below 1400 is a moron in his overly confident, and entirely not sober mind.

This time when Bruce's smile falls, it doesn't spring back up. Instead, he just stares at Jeremiah, lips set into a thin line. "You're drunk, you should go sleep it off."

"You should go find some catty girl to dance with. I'm just fine where I am."

"You're kind of being a dick, Jeremiah."

"You're kind of killing my buzz, Bruce."

"You know what?" Bruce says, hands raised, palms up. "Enjoy being spastic."

He walks away, and Jeremiah just stands there, staring and wondering where he went wrong.

The feet were a total success a couple nights prior. Once, he even felt Bruce grab his ankles and reposition them in his lap. A guy wouldn't do that unless he was interested, right? Or were at least okay with another guy being interested in him.

Jeremiah ends up hiding in his bedroom after all. He strips down to his new black boxer-briefs, climbs under the blankets, shivers, and gags a few times before everything goes black.

He thinks he dreams of Bruce's voice, distant and obscure, instructing Jeremiah to roll over on his side and talking about trash cans.

Jeremiah tells Dream-Bruce, in words that come out slurred and scarily certain, "One day you'll get me, Bruce."

 

Move #14: Shave his face.

Jeremiah's been on a homework binge. A wild, ferocious, caffeine-fueled homework binge. People come and go, moving their lips and making sounds, but Jeremiah ignores them all. He's working on an engineering project that will probably be of no use to anyone, anywhere, except maybe Jeremiah, but that's not why he's doing it.

Jeremiah likes creating.

Just the thought that Jeremiah put something into the world that hadn't previously existed— _ that _ is cool. It makes his brain happy—proud.

It's just not working like it should, though.

Jeremiah's brain—not the project.

The project works perfectly, of course.

Actually, Jeremiah wishes it had more problems—wishes it weren't so cut and dry—wishes there were some vague variable or error that tripped him up so he could solve it and have that added feeling of accomplishment.

Jeremiah is totally bummed.

Bruce comes by, Jeremiah notices. Sometimes, he'll pop his head into Jeremiah's room and ask what he wants from the China Wok, or Subway, or what he wants on his pizza.

Bruce buys him food. He gets Jeremiah drinks. He keeps track of how much Jeremiah's sleeping, and he's even suggested a shower or two in passing.

To a casual observer, Bruce would probably seem attentive and friendly, but Jeremiah knows better.

Bruce is distant.

He doesn't come and sit on the edge of Jeremiah's bed while he works, playing with his cell phone while they volley random conversations back and forth. He doesn't come and peek over Jeremiah's shoulder or ask what he's working on. And he hasn't commented on any of Jeremiah's posts, which is weird only because Jeremiah had chosen specific Bruce-related topics (how awful Wal-Mart is, the recent economic boom, the gaming industry's sometimes unethical methods to addict their audience).

Jeremiah did something bad.

The fact that he doesn't know what that is could be attributed to the fact that, barring some groovy dance moves and waking to vomit all over his pillow, Jeremiah doesn't remember much of anything about what happened on Oswald's birthday.

Also, Jeremiah is just bad at this stuff, alright? At everything in relation to this—seduction, attraction, not to mention general socialization with people.

So whatever happened happened. Jeremiah has this. The certainty of his project. Every problem is solved. He knows where he stands with this.

Jeremiah never  _ ever _ knows where he stands with Bruce.

He's still indulging in this four-day-running binge when there's an incessant knocking at the front door. 

Jeremiah ignores it, of course. That's what Oswald and Ed are for. He stays his pattern until the door opens.

Bruce appears in Jeremiah's open doorway, hands braced on either side. "Where is everyone?"

Jeremiah shrugs, sparing him a glance, noting his wet hair. "Is it raining?" Jeremiah doesn't even know what day of the week it is, let alone what the weather is like.

"No, it's—" Bruce pauses here, huffing out an annoyed breath. "There's no hot water in my room. Can I use your shower?"

Ignoring for one second that only a very thin wall will be separating Jeremiah from a very naked and wet Bruce—

Who is Jeremiah kidding?

There's no ignoring that.

He clears his throat, but his voice still breaks when he answers, "Yeah sure, whatever."

The sound of the shower running is enough to make Jeremiah stir beneath the cotton of his sweats. He adjusts his erection and tries to focus on his project, but it's like practically impossible. 

By the time the shower turns off, Jeremiah is so flustered and distracted that he doesn't know what the hell his project does.

Bruce takes long showers, and he spends even longer doing whatever it is he does after his shower. Brushing his hair? Drying it? Clipping his nails? Jeremiah doesn't even know, but he's aware enough of every crinkle and shift of fabric coming from the vicinity of the bathroom that the sound of the door opening jars him.

Bruce appears in his doorway again—this time, shirtless.

It takes Jeremiah a long time to realize Bruce is talking. Or that Bruce has a face at all.

A face that is half-covered in shaving cream. "Did you hear me?"

"Huh?"

"The mirror," Bruce apparently repeats. "It's broken."

"Uh," Jeremiah struggles to remember what a mirror is. "Oh yeah. It. The party. Oswald's. The guy and the. He broke it."

"What guy?" Bruce wants to know, and Jeremiah's just like  _ who fucking cares man, where is your shirt, you wet gorgeous asshole _ .

"I don't know. Some guy. He was in a lace teddy."

And Bruce of course nods, because he actually, like  _ knows people _ , and says, "So do you have another mirror? I need to shave."

They have mirrors. Oswald has a full-length mirror on the back of his door, and Jeremiah doesn't even want to know what purpose it serves. And Ed has a mirror in his closet, probably for a completely different function, but Jeremiah doesn't say that.

This is, like.

Divine intervention, right?

What are the chances that Tip #14 would fall in his lap like this, so effortlessly?

Jeremiah blames the sleep deprivation for choosing to go for it. There's no other explanation—not after the bad dancing and the avoidance and the overall badness of this whole plan.

The problem is, Jeremiah keeps remembering  _ the feet _ .

The fucking feet.

And the ankle repositioning.

And the lap.

Jeremiah remembers a lot about the lap.

And the thigh.

_ God _ , the thigh.

Jeremiah lurches up from his seat and barrels past Bruce. "I'll do it for you."

Jeremiah stands in the bathroom for what seems like forever, just surveying the evidence of Bruce's shower. There's a wet towel on the floor, shampoo on the tub's edge, a razor on the counter, and a sink full of water.

It takes a long time for Bruce to follow him in.

"You're going to shave my face?" Bruce asks, more than a hint of suspicion in both his voice and expression.

Jeremiah lifts a shoulder and reasons, "Why not? You'd do it for me."

The motivations wouldn't be the same, but Jeremiah doesn't point that out. Instead, he gestures to the counter and rolls up the sleeves of his sweater.

Bruce lifts himself onto the counter with a great deal of hesitance, his chest drying but still infuriatingly bare. "This is weird," he comments while applying shaving cream to the other half of his face.

"What's weird about a friend helping a friend?"

"It's not weird when a friend helps a friend, Jeremiah. It's weird when  _ you _ help a friend this way." Bruce grins, but Jeremiah supposes there's some authenticity to the sentiment.

It frustrates him. "It's not that I'm a bad friend," Jeremiah defends. "It's just that I don't always know what qualifies as a good friend, and in an unfairly Boolean summation, that makes me a bad friend by default."

"Boolean?"

"True or false. On or off. One or zero. Etcetera."

Bruce nods, however skeptically. "I know what Boolean means, Jeremiah, I'm just saying, in favor of logic, might I point out that it's not your place to determine the quality of your own friendship."

"Why the hell not? Doesn't intent count for anything?"

"Not if you can't convey it."

"Well that's—" Jeremiah picks up the razor and glares at it. "That's stupid."

"Is this a good idea? Letting you near my face with a sharp object?" Bruce's eyes are big and timid.

Jeremiah responds by stepping between Bruce's knees, eyes narrowed. "Don't talk."

Okay, so Bruce might have had a point.

This  _ is _ weird.

Awkward.

Jeremiah between Bruce's knees is a lot less hot than Jeremiah expected. Maybe because he's super close to Bruce's face and trying not to accidentally flay his cheek, who knows. But it gets really quiet. Jeremiah can hear three things: the dripping of the shower faucet, the scrape of the razor against stubble, and their breathing.

Everything is still.

Jeremiah uses a finger to turn Bruce's head when he's ready for the opposing cheek, careful to make it even. Afterward, he silently instructs Bruce by tucking his lips between his teeth, and Bruce mimics him with a gaze so intent that Jeremiah's too anxious about slipping to meet it.

Once done with his lip and jaw, Jeremiah puts a finger below Bruce's chin and forces his head back, drags the razor down the cords of muscle in his neck and throat, skimming softly over a bobbing Adam’s apple.

Jeremiah lifts his eyes to Bruce's, so he can judge whether or not the razor hurts the particularly sensitive area, but he finds Bruce's eyes fixed on Jeremiah's lips, where his tongue peeks out, prodding the corner of his mouth in concentration.

Jeremiah is so close.

He thinks.

Well, he could close the distance in less than a second, and if there's any objection on Bruce's part, then it could just be that Jeremiah lost his balance, right?

He might buy that.

Jeremiah doesn't have enough time to analyze it as much as he'd like to, probably because Bruce is staring at his lips and his eyes are all hooded and he doesn't have a shirt on and suddenly being between his knees is impossibly hotter than Jeremiah ever expected.

He does it.

He just.

Leans in and tilts his head, just so.

Falls forward.

Catches the corner of Bruce's mouth and pinches it between his lips.

It tastes astringent and bitter and salty, like shaving cream, which is sort of gross, and Bruce jerks back, and in doing so, bangs his head against the wall and winces, gaping.

"Was that—"

Jeremiah panics. "I lost my balance."  _ ABORT. ABORT. ABORT. _

"No, you didn't."

"I did." Jeremiah nods fervently. "Steam makes stuff slippery. All the time. It's documented fact and—"

And then Jeremiah can't talk, because for one, Bruce's smashed his mouth to Jeremiah's, and for two, Bruce is kissing Jeremiah, and for three, Bruce and Jeremiah are apparently kissing?

There's a fourth point in there too, and it has something to do with the way Bruce grabs Jeremiah's shoulders and yanks him closer, and he's breathing all loud and hissing through his nose onto Jeremiah's cheek, and it's unsteady in that way—in that nervous excited way—in that same way Jeremiah's breathing.

Jeremiah doesn't know what to do with hands. 

What they're even for? Why do they even exist? Does he even have any?

He just has lips, and they're between Bruce's and it is  _ awesome _ and also so totally unexpected, and he doesn't know what to do or how to breathe or how to ensure this never stops, ever ever.

Jeremiah's locking lips with Bruce and pinching and pulling with his mouth one second, and then suddenly there's no mouth there, and why?

That's dumb.

Bruce's breathing almost as hard as Jeremiah. "Damn."

Jeremiah gawks for a long second before leaning into right the injustice of the kissing thing no longer occurring, but then there are noises and voices, and people are in the common room, and Jeremiah and Bruce jump apart, nervous and panting.

Ed is the first to find them. "We have beer," he announces, eyes eventually observing the scene with equal parts amusement and confusion. "What—"

"Steam is slippery," Jeremiah says gruffly.

Bruce eyes them back and forth before supplying, "I used your shower."

"Oh." Ed nods and looks to Jeremiah, thumbing his chin. "You have a little something..."

Shaving cream.

Jeremiah blushes furiously and prays that Ed will display his up-until-now useless knowledge of social cues to leave.

Ed grins and leaves.

Smart man.

Bruce's the first to move. Jeremiah's too stunned and Wal-Mart-underwear-department levels of overwhelmed to do anything but stare at the glob of white shaving cream on the tip of his finger.

Bruce begins gathering his things, eventually putting on a shirt, Jeremiah notes with some distant amount of disappointment. Then his palm closes around the edge of the door and eases it almost-closed and he is suddenly very close to Jeremiah.

Kissing-type close.

Awkward eye contact type close.

Bruce ducks his head and noses Jeremiah's cheek catches his bottom lip with his mouth and kisses Jeremiah, all slow like that—tender-like. Like there's maybe a promise of more, even though neither says a word when Bruce leaves.

 

Move #11: Speak softly into his ear; use your tongue.

Well.

This settles it.

Jeremiah Valeska is a smooth motherfucker.

He remembers the kiss fondly that night as he lies in bed, hands clasped behind his head. The way Jeremiah just glided into that bathroom, took Bruce by the neck, and tongue-fucked his mouth like Jeremiah was some kind of Don Juan DeMarco or some shit, all suave and soft-lipped, and the way Bruce had swooned and breathed, "Oh, Jeremiah" like he was one kiss away from blacking out and creaming his pants...

Okay okay.

So Jeremiah  _ embellishes _ .

Still, though.

He did  _ something _ right, okay? It doesn't matter what; what matters is that  _ clearly _ , Bruce Wayne wanted to kiss Jeremiah, not once, but  _ twice _ and in arguably quick succession.

That's crossing the line of "polite interest" and basically sprinting toward a frantic finger-fucking and/or handjob.

Jeremiah—he gets ahead of himself, he can't help it. He's just such a cynic. Hope for a great porn video, expect a total failure, that's Jeremiah's motto.

Jeremiah has fantasies, mind you. A lot of them. But he's never allowed himself to even dream that Bruce might respond favorably to a physical or romantic... whatever. 

He's never had a reason to, so he's just never imagined... because then he'd have to see Bruce every day and think about everything he's  _ thought _ about, and it would be awkward and disappointing and just a bad idea.

Now, though.

Jeremiah is imagining.

And Bruce—who has  _ fingers _ , and  _ hands _ , and  _ lips _ , and an entire  _ mouth _ for fuck's sake, and also importantly, a  _ penis _ —can do things to Jeremiah in these imaginings, and Jeremiah might never leave his room again because this is enough to keep him busy forever.

But Bruce.

He wants to kiss Jeremiah.

So Jeremiah would be pretty dumb to not wake up the next morning and form a plan of hunting Bruce down and taking swift advantage of this fact, right?

Right.

But.

Since Jeremiah ends up jerking himself raw until all hours of the morning, Jeremiah oversleeps and misses class which he never does, and he stubs his toe on the doorframe, and his hair is doing this thing that is not indicative of the smooth motherfucker he remembers himself being, and Jeremiah doesn't even begin to know how to tame it or—

He has a sort of bad day.

When he gets home that evening, hungry and grumpy and tired, he can hear Bruce's voice through the door.

That makes his day better.

Instantly.

Jeremiah spends a few moments out there in the hall, psyching himself up and combing his fingers through his shitty, shitty hair, and he rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, and if he also does a push-up or two, he'll take that shit to his grave.

With a deep breath, Jeremiah  _ glides _ in.

And immediately stumbles over a shoe.

Goddammit, Oswald.

He takes a moment to grimace in pain, hopping on one foot and cradling his doubly-abused toe, before he realizes that Bruce is there, on the sofa— _ looking _ at Jeremiah.

Jeremiah straightens.

Clears his throat.

Walks it off.

"’Sup," Jeremiah asks, dying inside because he never uses words like that, and also finds himself totally unable to make anything resembling eye contact with Bruce, so he just stares at this vague spot over his shoulder and flushes red and mentally wills his hair to look awesome.

Ed answers, "Miah! What's your stance on going in on some killer whiskey?"

And so.

That's how most of the night goes. Jeremiah and Oswald and Ed and Bruce all bullshit just like they always have and will, but Jeremiah can't meet Bruce's eyes because he keeps thinking of his  _ fingers _ and his  _ penis _ and the various points-of-entry on Jeremiah's body they could penetrate, and then Jeremiah gets all flustered and red and stuttery and has to pull the hem of his sweater over his lap like a thirteen-year-old.

By the time Ed and Oswald agree to go on a whiskey run, consequently leaving Bruce and Jeremiah in the dorm all alone, the tension is so palpable that Jeremiah might vomit.

Or ejaculate.

He hasn't decided which.

Jeremiah eyes Bruce from his periphery, and is about to make small talk to break the ice, but realizes that's a bad idea. Jeremiah talking. It would get him in trouble.

He feels strangely proud for predicting this.

Bruce's just sitting there, watching T.V. as if he's unaffected by all of these... feelings, and Jeremiah hopes that's not the case and Bruce is really just a super good actor, because Jeremiah's about to make a move.

Jeremiah goes through a mental checklist of all the tips he's used already. The foot thing, it had been a success, but they're way past footsie. The shaving thing, well. Jeremiah's not sure he can come up with a good enough excuse to merit his shaving Bruce again and without impossibly more awkwardness. 

There are other tips, sure. Some are downright explicit, and Jeremiah really  _ really _ wants to work his way to those, but he's not—no way is he ready for—with the pillows—and the texts—and the orgasms—and  _ fuck _ .

 

Tip #11 seems like a good middle ground, even though it calls for  _ talking _ and Jeremiah always fucks that up.

Jeremiah's so flustered by now that he doesn't have the patience or creativity to come up with something both seductive and safely inoffensive to whisper into Bruce's ear, so instead, he just leans over, however rigidly, and breathes out an elongated, "Hi."

Then he flicks Bruce's earlobe with his tongue and snaps back to his previous position, stiff and sweaty.

"Did you just lick my ear?" Bruce asks after a pause.

Jeremiah swallows and considers aborting, but admits in a smaller voice than intended, "Yeah?"

Another pause. Then, "Okay." Bruce chuckles, and before Jeremiah can decide if he's being laughed at, Bruce's breath is hot at  _ his _ ear. "Are you going to kiss me, or just lap awkwardly at my ear all night?"

When Jeremiah finally finds the balls to meet his gaze, Bruce is visibly fighting a grin.

For the record, Jeremiah doesn't necessarily  _ dive _ at Bruce, but he will admit to advancing on him in a pounce-like fashion and mashing their faces so close together that neither can breathe from their nose without it being loud and abrasive.

Jeremiah's not smooth like he remembers. Instead, Bruce's palm finds Jeremiah's cheek, and then his neck, and then his hair, and it reminds Jeremiah that Jeremiah has hands and Bruce has hair and he really wants to merge those two concepts.

He pokes Bruce in the eye.

"I'm sorry," Jeremiah says, panting as he watches a hissing Bruce cup his eye.

Bruce just laughs, blinks a few times, and reintroduces their lips, and Jeremiah wonders  _ how the hell _ Bruce does that. All of it. The cheek cupping and the easy blow-off of Jeremiah's fumbles.

They're, like... basically made for each other.

No one else would tolerate Jeremiah's a-little-too-enthusiastic kisses, nor the possible slobber that's currently emerging as Jeremiah tries to ease this into tongue-ish territory. But Bruce. Bruce just rolls with it. He just cups Jeremiah's cheek and slows the pace of the smacking sounds into something slow and borderline erotic. Kissing Bruce makes Jeremiah feel smooth by proxy—almost confident—and now Jeremiah can part his lips and sweep his tongue over Bruce's slick mouth, and—

Bruce is so into that, he exhales super loud and Jeremiah can feel Bruce's body go all slack and then Bruce's mouth opens and  _ his tongue _ is there, like...  _ touching _ Jeremiah's and licking Jeremiah's mouth, and Jeremiah is  _ so hard _ right now, he's shaking.

Jeremiah is shaking.

All over.

Fuck his life, it's mortifying.

If Bruce notices this, he doesn't call attention to it, instead choosing to suck at Jeremiah's mouth and make these little happy sounds in the back of his throat, all the while pressing Jeremiah's face closer and closer, until ultimately, their tongues don't feel air, just the warmth of the other’s mouth.

Jeremiah's tremors eventually dissipate into a weird, sedated sensation. Everything seems slow and slick. Hot and moist. Jeremiah sweats a lot. Does the thing where he loops his tongue around Bruce's and they move them in harmony and it's  _ so hot _ . So unbelievably hot.

They break away equally breathless, but then Bruce kisses down his jaw and mouths at Jeremiah's neck, and Jeremiah groans, lets his head fall back against the sofa.

"You can touch me," Bruce encourages into his skin, moist with Bruce's tongue-heavy kisses.

So Jeremiah lifts a hand and puts it into Bruce's hair, pushes his face further into his neck.

Bruce chuckles, "I meant something kind of like—" and then his hand is on Jeremiah's thigh, and it's going up and up and in and in, and it's  _ pressing _ and grabbing and squeezing and—

Jeremiah's hand forms a tight fist into Bruce's hair when he jerks forward and shudders, mouth open in a sudden, silent cry.

After a pretty long and horrifying pause, Jeremiah still gasps for air. "I—" He also doesn't know what to say.

Bruce finally lifts his face from Jeremiah's neck, wondering with big, incredulous eyes, "Did you just—?"

Footsteps sound outside the door and their eyes go big, and Bruce stuffs his hand into a pocket and begins  _ adjusting _ , and Jeremiah uses the three seconds he has to hastily swear on his life, "That never happens. Bruce, that  _ never _ happens."

 

Move #25: Use your hands to guide him during sex.

Jeremiah has tons of labs due. His academics have suffered greatly ever since Bruce began permeating every facet of Jeremiah's attention, and okay yeah, Jeremiah isn't precisely  _ in there _ when it comes to Bruce, but he's comfortable enough in Bruce's mutual interest right this second that Jeremiah thinks it's best to  _ not _ fail out of college.

Jeremiah only says this because Bruce didn't seem particularly put off by Jeremiah's rather  _ expeditious _ climax. Bruce just smiled with those big sympathetic eyebrows and clapped Jeremiah on a shoulder.

Then they got drunk with Ed and Oswald.

And every now and then, Jeremiah or Bruce would begin randomly laughing, and the other would know  _ exactly _ what was being laughed about, so in turn,  _ he _ would begin laughing, and everything was better than fine.

The remainder of Jeremiah's week is spent being studious.

Just enough to get ahead.

So for now, Jeremiah commits himself to his work. He's mostly doing basic or rather it’s elementary stuff to Jeremiah, but sometimes he likes to sneak in something that's newly developed and not included in the syllabus that will probably piss off his professor.

But whatever.

He's been working on this thing for two nights in a row and being incredibly productive too, so when Bruce walks in on Friday night, takes a seat at the corner of Jeremiah's bed, and asks how things are going, Jeremiah's torn between answering, "I'm too embarrassed about my premature ejaculation to look you in the eye, how are you?" or "I've been getting so much done without your big eyes and long fingers and firm thighs here to distract me," or "hjdblhdbvlhdh."

That last one would be the sound Jeremiah makes when he shoves his tongue down Bruce's throat.

Still, Jeremiah's kind of grateful for the nugget of familiarity the whole affair offers, so he and Bruce just talk like that while Jeremiah works and Bruce dicks around on his cell phone. And if Jeremiah sometimes maybe minimizes to his black-background desktop, giving him a perfect reflection of Bruce sprawled out behind him, then there's no harm in that, right?

It's the most fun Jeremiah could possibly have without the presence of Bruce's tongue and fingers.

They talk for hours until eventually, Jeremiah hears Bruce sigh, the bed shift, and then he's standing over Jeremiah's shoulder, staring at the screen.

"What's this?" he asks.

"Plans for a wireless heating source" Jeremiah responds.

"Oh." Bruce stands there for a second, distractingly close and smelling unfairly good, until he dips his face to Jeremiah's ear and whispers, "Sounds boring," and it's all warm and tickly, and Jeremiah—Jeremiah shivers from the root of his very being, and if he thought there was any chance of recovering his focus, then Jeremiah is  _ wrong _ , because then Bruce sucks Jeremiah's earlobe into his mouth and  _ hums _ .

Or purrs.

Whatever.

The point is, Jeremiah's rendered totally and completely stupefied, his hand slack on the mouse while his thighs flex and his spine bows.

As if that wasn't enough to make Jeremiah forget that there's a project in front of him, Bruce begins kissing his neck, open-mouthed and lascivious, and then his  _ hand _ presses hard against Jeremiah's chest, rubbing, Jeremiah always knew there'd be rubbing, and creeping down and down and down, until Bruce, hunched and bent over Jeremiah's shoulder, cups Jeremiah's crotch.

Jeremiah  _ does not _ cream his pants.

Jeremiah  _ does _ make a sound akin to a small fluffy animal being kicked.

It's, like, a squawk.

Or a yelp.

Bruce's mouth closes around Jeremiah's neck, and there are  _ teeth _ , and his hand is rubbing rubbing rubbing, Jeremiah  _ loves _ rubbing, and Jeremiah kind of falls back against his chair and grabs wildly at the armrests.

Bruce forces Jeremiah's face to the side, where their tongues can meet in a brief and sloppy kiss, and Jeremiah arches up from the chair to chase Bruce's lips when he suddenly disappears.

Bruce drops back to the bed, propped on his elbows, eyes dark and hooded when Jeremiah immediately swivels to face him.

This is when Jeremiah just happens to glance down Bruce's body, noting his suit and perfectly tailored  _ everything _ , and Jeremiah's mouth goes dry when he swallows, and his lips part when he realizes the bulge in Bruce's crotch is definitely not the curve of his zipper and is totally a boner.

Jeremiah stares.

For, like, an inappropriate and uncomfortable length of time.

"You can touch it," Bruce offers. "If you want."

If Jeremiah  _ wants _ ?

Jeremiah does a scurry-ish roll-walk in his chair toward the bed, until he's close enough to reach out a tentative and unsteady hand, place it directly over the outline of Bruce's erection, and just—rest it there—feeling the heat and pulse and  _ twitch _ beneath his clammy palm.

Jeremiah is entirely transfixed by the feel of it.

The room is quiet enough that he can hear Bruce's gulp when Jeremiah's hand finally moves over Bruce's crotch, rubbing and stroking and testing this and that, a little curiously.

Bruce exhales in a groan, lets his head fall back, and rests there like that—eyes closed and thighs spread as Jeremiah experiments, sometimes dropping low, sometimes thumbing high, over his zipper or adjusting Bruce to the side of it so he can press a line down the center.

Of course, Bruce is hung.

Because he wouldn't be perfect enough with his perfect voice and perfect hair and perfect arms and perfect eyes and perfect fingers and perfect mouth and perfect thighs if there weren't a perfect penis to complete the perfect package.

Classic overachiever.

Sometimes—

Well, usually.

Jeremiah just feels, like...

So  _ fucking inferior _ to Bruce.

Jeremiah is  _ not _ hung, alright? He's not  _ small _ , but he's just normal, like everything else about himself with the exception of his brain and his lack of social ability.

He gets a little sad, you know?

Because Jeremiah—always a cynic—is just so positive that Bruce is out of his league tenfold.

"Come here," Bruce breathes, and Jeremiah tears his eyes away from his crotch and finds Bruce staring at him, all intense and drunk-eyed, but he never gives Jeremiah the chance, because Bruce reaches forward and grabs Jeremiah by the collar, yanking him until Jeremiah is falling out of the chair and onto Bruce.

He lands pretty hard on a rib, and Bruce  _ oomph _ 's, wincing, but his hips press up into Jeremiah's and then their mouths are open and on each other’s', and Jeremiah's brain stops working.

Jeremiah humps Bruce.

He doesn't  _ mean to _ , but it's just that—he's there, on top of him, and their boners press together, which is—

Yeah.

And so Jeremiah just braces himself on his elbows and starts humping down onto Bruce's body, all frantic and gaspy and strangely determined until he realizes what he must look like, all bent and humping like that like he's a fucking jackrabbit or something.

So embarrassing.

But when he tries to stop, Bruce does this push-flip-bounce thing where he rolls Jeremiah over onto his back, and then Bruce—

He says, all gruff and breathless into Jeremiah's ear, "Spread these," and wedges a palm between Jeremiah's thighs, pushing them apart.

Jeremiah is so close to becoming a serial premature ejaculator right then, and he attributes a lot of appalling mental images to the fact that he can somehow isolate it to a one-time occurrence.

Bruce settles between Jeremiah’s legs and grabs Jeremiah’s hands, and while they're licking into each other's mouths, Bruce lifts them over Jeremiah's head and pins them to the mattress—uses that point of contact for leverage while he rocks into Jeremiah, panting hot into his mouth.

So when Jeremiah decides to employ Tip #25, it's not necessarily because he wants to seduce Bruce, who is already sliding against Jeremiah in the most delicious way, and it's definitely not because Jeremiah feels dissatisfied with the current position, because  _ believe him _ , Bruce pinning his hands down like this is just—

Jeremiah nods pointlessly into the kiss.

It's awesome.

They should dedicate award shows to it.

But Jeremiah wrestles his hands away and he's free to reach down and grab two handfuls of Bruce's tight, flexing ass cheeks, which is all he  _ really _ wants, for obvious reasons.

Jeremiah has a lot less time than he'd like to dig his fingertips into the flesh there, guiding Bruce's hips higher and closer, and sliding their bodies against one another, because Bruce makes this choking, grunty sound into Jeremiah's mouth, and it's hot, so so hot, and Jeremiah can't—he just can't cream his pants again and live with himself.

With a gasp, Jeremiah wedges his hand between their bodies and pushes Bruce up and up, until Jeremiah can unzip his pants and pull them  _ down _ , and yank his sweater  _ up _ .

Jeremiah grabs his erection and tugs at it until he's sobbing breaths into the space between them, spurting ribbons all over his stomach and chest.

Before Jeremiah's even done shaking and huffing, Bruce's suddenly unbuttoning his own pants, tearing down the zipper, and pulling himself free, and if Jeremiah were physically capable of having another orgasm before this one's even concluded, then it would happen when he saw Bruce's dick for the first time, hard and purple and leaking  _ because of Jeremiah _ .

And when Bruce swipes a palm over Jeremiah's stomach, collecting and smearing everything, which he then uses to jerk himself off with, Jeremiah mutters a low, "Ohmygod," and watches, mesmerized as Bruce stares down at the blur of his own hand, red-faced and gasping for air.

Bruce comes all over Jeremiah.

And Bruce also makes  _ sounds _ .

These broken, tense, pleading sounds.

Jeremiah keeps replaying them in his head, even when Bruce's body's gone slack and he sits back on his heels, wiping his top lip with the cuff of a sleeve.

Jeremiah is covered in it.

It makes Bruce laugh. "What can I use?"

And Jeremiah's like,  _ What? You can _ talk?

Jeremiah wishes he could talk.

Instead, he just points dumbly to the towel he'd used after that morning's shower.

 

Move #4: Send him a "Let's fuck tonight" message.

It hits Jeremiah later that night—after Bruce's left and Jeremiah can reflect on all the sounds and Bruce jerking off and the way Bruce's breath tastes when he's frantic and horny.

Bruce  _ seduced _ Jeremiah.

With  _ Jeremiah's own fucking move. _

It totally blows his mind.

Bruce just waltzed over to Jeremiah's chair, whispered into his ear, and so smoothly got into Jeremiah's pants.

How the hell?

That's when it hits him.

These "tips" aren't a guidebook. They're just meant to be inspirational, you know? Like. Ideas or supplements. Not necessarily an instruction manual.

Therefore, Jeremiah is now realizing that doing these things alone will  _ not _ make Jeremiah appealing.

_ Jeremiah _ has to make himself appealing. The tips are just there to inspire various methods of conveying his intent of seduction.

So, yeah.

He gets that now.

Bruce so easily seduced Jeremiah because he was sexy, and well, also because he was Bruce in general, not just because he sucked on Jeremiah's earlobe.

Jeremiah understands now. At least. He thinks he does. He needs to put his own spin on these things. Make them Jeremiahesque. Get creative. Apply them to his specific situation and character.

Jeremiah's so inspired by this epiphany that he wants to employ it the following the day. He has big plans for Tip #22, and he can barely think about anything else, because Tip #22?

It involves a shower.

Jeremiah’s just saying.

But Bruce never comes over.

So Jeremiah waits for the following day.

And Bruce doesn't come over  _ then _ either.

Jeremiah gets frustrated, and—

If he's being honest?

A little scared.

What if Bruce's come to his senses and realized how spastic and incompetent Jeremiah really is?

What if Jeremiah grossed him out or—

God.

What if Jeremiah makes really stupid faces when he comes?

"Have you tried just calling him?" Ed asks when Jeremiah goes to him with a metaphor about a friend who kind of had sexual relations with another friend, and now the friend is suddenly absent, and what does this sort of behavior suggest about the other friend's  _ feelings _ and such?

Jeremiah opens his mouth to correct Ed and insist it's a  _ friend _ , but Jeremiah gives Ed more credit than that.

No one would believe Jeremiah has other friends.

So Jeremiah just stalks away and decides to risk seeming clingy. Or whatever.

He texts Bruce:  _ where r u? _

Bruce's response doesn't come until an hour later:  _ my room? _

Jeremiah stares thoughtfully at the reply for a long while, wondering how to best be desperate without seeming desperate.  _ wanna come over? _

_ can't. writing an essay :( _

Jeremiah mimics the frowny face and growls in frustration at his phone.  _ you can do it here. _

_ i wouldn't get anything done over there and you know it _

Well.

This is a confusing response for Jeremiah. It could mean that Bruce might have limited self-control when it comes to Jeremiah, which—

Jeremiah cracks a grin to himself.

Or it could mean—

_ i'll tell E and O to leave you alone _

After a minute:  _ they arent the ones who distract me ;) _

Jeremiah exhales into a laugh that's so cheeky his jaw hurts.

Then he glances around to make sure no one saw it.

_ how close are you to being done? _

Bruce answers,  _ not even a little. why? _

And this is it.

This is  _ Jeremiah's chance _ .

It takes Jeremiah forever to answer, because he's not as creative as he'd like to be, and he's also indecisive, and he gets really flustered because he keeps  _ thinking _ about what he intends to convey with his spin on Tip #4.

It seems simple.

The point of the tip isn't to just type, "Let's fuck tonight." Jeremiah gets that now.

So Jeremiah picks it apart and tries to understand what  _ makes _ that a move men love.

It's the bluntness of it, he decides, the obscene nature of the content fused with spontaneity.

It's basically science.

Or math.

Both of which he’s great at.

After just enough time to preserve the impulsive characteristic of the concept, exactly twenty minutes, Jeremiah is resolute.

_ i want to see how much of your dick i can fit in my mouth. _

Jeremiah blushes from head to toe after he sends the text. And he's nervous. So nervous. This is the kind of thing that backfires  _ all the time _ . 

Jeremiah begins remembering everyone he ever made a move on and Jeremiah remembers being slapped.

At least three times due to a lack of social grace.

The guys reacted far worse, though Jeremiah supposes that had more to do with them being homophobic than anything, but still.

Jeremiah paces the floor of his room and he—

He wishes there was a way to unsend it.

_ Especially so _ when Bruce doesn't respond, even forty minutes later.

Jeremiah is already typing out an apology when he bursts through his door.

Bruce, that is.

Jeremiah is stunned to see him standing there, all flushed and kind of breathless, in a dingy t-shirt and wrinkled pants, which is about as un-put-together as Jeremiah has ever seen him.

Jeremiah lifts his hand, waving weakly.

Bruce, who closes the door behind him, clears the room in three strides and has Jeremiah against his desk, kissing Jeremiah and pressing into him with his hips, and breathing hard into his mouth. Jeremiah's still processing all of this, only just now throwing all that he is into meeting Bruce's slick tongue thrusts when the sound of Bruce's zipper jars him.

Jeremiah drops to his knees pretty much instantly, wrapping his mouth around the firm, warm flesh, and pushing Bruce's hips against the desk as he bobs and sucks and licks, and Bruce—

Bruce touches Jeremiah's hair, muttering, "Yeah,  _ god _ . That's—so good, Jeremiah. So evil, but so good." He laughs brokenly as he says this, and Jeremiah would laugh too if his mouth wasn't full of Bruce's dick, because as he discovers, he can't really fit  _ anywhere near _ all of it in there, and if he gags once or twice while trying, then no one can blame him for aiming high.

Since Bruce ends up coming inside Jeremiah's mouth in three minutes flat, shaking and gasping and pulling Jeremiah's hair into his fists, Jeremiah supposes  _ nowhere near all of it _ is enough.

Bruce falls back onto Jeremiah's desk while Jeremiah stands, wiping the slobber and spunk from his lips and chin with a sleeve because he's only done that one other time, and he's not that good, but then—

Bruce looks satisfied.

Never has a sloppy and kind of gross experience been so personally rewarding for Jeremiah.

He does his best impression of unaffected.

Bruce still sits somewhat awkwardly, presumably since spit and jizz have possibly dripped between his legs at some point. "I—"

Jeremiah has rendered him speechless.

He knew it.

Jeremiah  _ is _ a smooth motherfucker.

He finishes for Bruce, "You have to finish your essay. Understandable."

Bruce chokes a laugh, staring at Jeremiah with big eyes. "You tricked me."

"No," Jeremiah argues. "Tricking you would entail a complete lack of everything that just happened. I delivered in full, so technically..."

Bruce lifts his shirt from his head and uses it to clean up the mess Jeremiah's made of his crotch, concluding, " _ Seduced _ me, whatever. It's not fair. I really do have to go back and finish." And he looks so apologetic with his shiny eyes when he grabs one of Jeremiah's shirts and makes to leave, but Jeremiah doesn't expect instant reciprocation, and he says so.

Seduction's about  _ patience _ .

Jeremiah—he gets that now.

 

Move #22. Surprise him while he's in the shower.

Jeremiah and Bruce text back and forth the rest of the week. Sometimes they'll "catch" one another walking to class and stop and talk, or make fun of the jock who broke his leg and totally had it coming, or exchange thinly-veiled innuendo that Jeremiah's still getting the hang of, and sometimes—

Sometimes, when no one's around, when halls are empty, or they pass by an alley, or they can sneak behind a door, Jeremiah and Bruce will kiss, almost frantically mouth to mouth while their hands find collars and belt loops and pull their bodies closer and closer. Jeremiah likes those times best because when they're forced to break apart and continue on their path, Bruce will do this  _ stuff _ .

This strangely  _ affectionate _ stuff.

It comes as a surprise to Jeremiah. He’s never been much of an affectionate person, his family never taught him anything about being affectionate, in fact, he’s just lucky he’s not violent like the rest of them, and since people will usually avoid giving affection to someone who won’t—or doesn’t know quite how to—return that affection, Jeremiah so rarely encounters it.

It’s never bothered him. Jeremiah’s never sought it out, and he hasn’t felt lacking at all in his otherwise brief interactions with others, but now—

Jeremiah is intercepting Bruce’s path to Economics, totally by coincidence. Their eyes meet across the street, and Bruce ducks behind a statue nearby. 

Jeremiah finds him there, slouched against it, legs spread just enough to seem rather come-hither-y.

They kiss, wet and loud, and the entire time, Bruce has his arms around Jeremiah’s waist, and Jeremiah—he really wishes Bruce would pay more attention to his very neglected ass-region, but he’s not quite sure how to articulate that. He also feels a little disappointed when a group of students walks their way and they have to separate, but then Bruce—

Bruce presses his lips beneath Jeremiah’s ear, brushes his fingertips against Jeremiah’s palm, and gently scratches it.

This is what Bruce does—the affection thing? It makes Jeremiah feel…

Well, it makes Jeremiah  _ feel _ .

It’s not something he can explain.

It’s tender.

He doesn’t know how to express it back and it bothers him.

Jeremiah watches the passing group when Bruce leaves. The coupley, gross people within it. Just to see how they do that—how they express affection. And Jeremiah thinks their actions—arms thrown across shoulders and hands tucked into back pockets—seem generic and done more out of habit or societal obligation than anything.

Jeremiah doesn’t want that.

He can’t put a name to whatever he feels when Bruce does those things, but Jeremiah knows it’s definitely not artificial.

So. Since Jeremiah is decidedly against generic affection, he decides to simply do nothing.

Let it come naturally.

Or whatever.

The whole thing is stressing him out.

Instead, Jeremiah goes back to the drawing board for his next attempt at seduction. He’s getting good at that. He’ll keep his cart behind his horse, thank you very much.

The problem? Bruce—he's just so busy. He has so much on his plate, and maybe Jeremiah can sort of relate? Since he doesn't have many extra-curricular activities, but Jeremiah does have other obligations. Changing the world, eventually, obligations. He's still working on new projects and keeping up with the ever-changing industry, but most of the time, Jeremiah just wishes Bruce would be there—in his room—with his dick in Jeremiah's mouth.

Crass but it’s the truth.

The timing is just never right.

So Jeremiah decides to  _ make _ it right.

Bruce has an Investor’s Club meeting every third Tuesday of the month at precisely eight in the morning. Because they are all freaks who actually wake up early enough to be punctual for that kind of shit.

Jeremiah has been infatuated with Tip #22 ever since he first found Cosmo sitting in his dentist’s waiting room.

Actually.

Jeremiah has probably been infatuated with Tip #22 since before he realized Cosmo was even a thing.

Since Bruce has to be at the meeting at seven, Jeremiah calculates that he’ll be most likely to catch Bruce showering in his room between the hours of five and six on Tuesday morning.

It’s not like he’s given this much thought or anything.

Since there’s no way Jeremiah’s waking up  _ that _ fucking early, he just stays up late. It’s not that difficult, what with coffee and sugar and all the jerking off he does to make certain he can last through… whatever it is that might happen.

Jeremiah is  _ so excited _ by the time he leaves the dorm. Also maybe a little over-stimulated from caffeine. If Jeremiah almost loses a shoe doing something that may or may not resemble a prance through campus, then no one’s around to prove it.

He sits outside Bruce’s room with his ear to the wall, awaiting the sound of running plumbing. Jeremiah doesn’t want to imagine what he must look like, standing there in the dark like a total creeper. His paranoia only amplifies when the plumbing  _ does _ sound, because, despite his brief moment of celebration that he’d gotten the time so precise, he realizes he has to break into Bruce’s room.

It’s not hard, Jeremiah Googled it.

When he finally makes it inside, Jeremiah undresses right there, so the sounds of his wired fumbling won’t ruin his surprise.

Jeremiah does a push-up or ten before sneaking into the bathroom, steam filling his nostrils with the smell of scented soap and heat. His feet smack too loudly against the tiles and Jeremiah cups his junk, takes a breath, and steps behind the shower curtain. Bruce is beneath the water, all  _ wet _ and sinewy, and his ass is  _ ridiculous _ .

When he sees Jeremiah, Bruce emits a sound not totally unlike that of a screech, covering his crotch with sudsy hands.

Jeremiah’s eyes go big when he suddenly realizes that Tip #22?

It’s a little illegal.

And stalker-y.

“Jeremiah?” Bruce gasps, eyes squinting through the steam. “What the  _ hell _ are you—“

Jeremiah speaks weakly over him, “Surprise?”

“—doing in my shower at six thirty in the morning?” Bruce looks—well, not mad, but definitely some form of rattled.

Jeremiah tries to explain, “I was. Well, um. The—a surprise. For. Because you’re busy. And showers are—I had coffee?”

After a pause, Bruce translates, “You had coffee so you could be awake at six in the morning to surprise me in the shower, because I’m busy?” and Jeremiah nods helplessly, which makes Bruce sigh into a laugh, shaking his head. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“I didn’t plan it through?”

Lies.

Bruce smiles like he doesn’t mind, but then, they’re both still holding onto their junk, and Jeremiah slaps his feet around in the water, suddenly awkward.

He resolves to push through it by just dropping his hands, clearing his throat, and reaching out a hand to poke Bruce in the side.

“Hi.”

Bruce mimics him with a sly smile. “Hi.” Except he doesn’t poke Jeremiah, so much as he grabs his wrist and pulls him closer.

Their kiss is slippery.

So are their chests.

And then, when they start getting hard, their bobbing erections cross and graze, which makes Jeremiah press himself closer until they’re caught between their slippery bodies, and that is—

Yeah.

Bruce muses while mouthing at Jeremiah’s neck, “I think I still owe you something,” and his hand presses into the small of Jeremiah’s back, but fails to go any lower, and that makes Jeremiah—

“About that,” he begins, and since he’s pretty sure there’s no graceful way of making this request, Jeremiah stutters, “W-w-with the…? Yeah. It’d be— _ great _ . But, alternatively. If you—I mean, you might  _ not _ . And it’s. I won’t mind—”

Bruce looks surprised when he meets Jeremiah’s gaze. “You want something else?”

To this, Jeremiah nods.

He nods  _ fervently _ .

“Like what?” And Bruce’s smile is fond—expectant even—like Jeremiah could say  _ I want you to lick my toes _ and Bruce would drop down on all fours and do just that, no reservations, but Jeremiah—

“Um. Uhhh, well.” He blushes furiously and is so flustered with the idea of even saying it aloud, that he ends up just verbally vomiting, “Sometimes I look at your fingers a lot.”

And then Jeremiah does it.

Looks at Bruce’s fingers.

Bruce curves an eyebrow. “You get off on looking at my fingers?”

Frustrated, Jeremiah shakes his head. “Not  _ exactly _ …”

Bruce’s eyes widen—perhaps a spark of comprehension. And then( because Jeremiah told you so, he and Bruce were  _ so _ made for each other, his hand  _ finally finally _ falls below Jeremiah’s back, sweeps over the curve of his ass, and he presses his  _ fingers _ into the crevice there, asking, “Here?”

Jeremiah does that frantic nodding thing again, only now, he’s sort of panting in anticipation, because most guys would give their left arms to get head from just about anyone, but Jeremiah—

_ This _ is what Jeremiah likes, above all else.

He holds onto Bruce’s shoulder when they begin kissing again, Bruce pressing all the while, closer and closer, and then eventually, he’s massaging and prodding  _ there _ , and Jeremiah’s tongue stops moving.

He just stands there, mouth agape, as Bruce pushes his finger inside.

Jeremiah’s toes curl.

Then the water goes cold.

Bruce yelps and jumps away and scurries to turn the water off, leaving behind him a very disgruntled Jeremiah. Luckily, Bruce returns with a laugh, spins Jeremiah around, and slips his finger back between his spread cheeks.

Jeremiah stares at the tile wall as Bruce fingers him, a little tentatively at first, but then Bruce begins thrusting with more and more certainty, eventually adding some soap to his fingers and kissing along Jeremiah’s nape as he pushes pushes pushes.

Jeremiah makes sounds.

Probably embarrassing sounds.

Embarrassing, positive sounds.

“You like that?” Bruce asks. Not in that cocky smug way that would totally kill it for Jeremiah, but in this really gentle, almost nervous kind of way.

“Yeah. Yes. One hundred and ten percent, yes—“ Jeremiah finds it hard to continue with his train of thought when Bruce adds a second finger.

Jeremiah jerks himself off, since the position is awkward and Bruce is a little busy thrusting his fingers into Jeremiah, his knuckles slapping against Jeremiah’s skin when Jeremiah encourages, “More, more, more.”

Bruce’s breath is loud and rapid at Jeremiah’s ear.

When he comes, Jeremiah muffles a cry into his arm, knees shaking. He’d probably fall onto the shower floor if Bruce’s fingers weren’t being shoved so  _ strongly _ up Jeremiah’s ass that they basically hold his weight.

While Jeremiah recovers, Bruce jerks off over his spread ass, all wet, squelchy skin sounds and teeth-gnashed grunts.

It’s the most obscene thing Jeremiah has ever experienced.

They both rush through what’s returned of the hot water to clean themselves, and when the water turns off, Bruce does the thing again. The strangely  _ affectionate _ , palm scratching thing. It invokes that new, unfamiliar tenderness that Jeremiah’s growing oddly addicted to. It’s heavy and soft, all at the same time, and Jeremiah—

He doesn’t have a  _ thing _ .

A strangely  _ affectionate _ thing.

But he wants one.

So he ruffles Bruce’s hair.

Bruce blinks at him, brows pulled together, and in a moment of panic, because Jeremiah’s pretty sure that’s not quite the kind of affection he should be aiming for, 

Jeremiah  _ hugs _ Bruce.

Really tight.

He steps away with a satisfied nod and tries not to read much into Bruce’s perplexed grin.

 

Move #26: Prop him up with pillows during oral sex so he can see your eyes.

Just when Bruce’s workload seems to ease up, Jeremiah’s grows. He has another project due, more labs, two essays, and the projects he’s been developing needs tons of fixes thanks to a temper tantrum thrown by Oswald that has them both raging at each other for days.

Jeremiah feels a little less bad about his own impatience when Bruce employs his own version of dirty tactics.

_ im not wearing pants, _ Bruce texts one day.

It’s difficult, very difficult when Jeremiah knows Bruce’s thighs are bare and that he’s in his room, waiting for Jeremiah to come and discover them, but Jeremiah is forced to respond,  _ raincheck? _

After a long pause, Bruce replies,  _ I wanted to see how many of my fingers I could fit in your ass _ , and Jeremiah is sliding his feet into his shoes and running out the door before his computer has even shut down all the way.

For the record, three.

But in Bruce’s defense, Jeremiah didn’t last long enough for further investigation.

When Jeremiah has the timeBruce comes over and waits on his bed, he gives him blowjob after blowjob, and Jeremiah doesn’t like to toot his own horn or anything, but he’s getting good at those, so Bruce never complains about being neglected for most of the time he’s present.

It’s what he’s expecting tonight, since he’s hunched over his desk, typing away about something not engineering related, because they make him take History courses like it’s something Jeremiah will ever use.

He minimizes to desktop a lot. The black one. With the reflection of Bruce behind him. Every few minutes, he’ll do it, and each time, he’s greeted with a new pose from Bruce, and Jeremiah  _ really _ wants to finish this essay so that he can go and bury his face into Bruce’s crotch, so he resolves to stop looking.

After one more time.

Bruce’s reflection is lying on his side, head propped on a palm as he reads from a book. No—not a book.

A magazine.

A pink looking magazine.

Jeremiah turns and dives at the bed in a motion so quick that he misses his target entirely, launching himself promptly over the corner of his bed, and landing with a hard  _ crack _ onto the floor. 

Jeremiah lays there, cradling his side in pain as Bruce hums thoughtfully.

“Jeremiah?”

Jeremiah wheezes, “Yeah?”

“Have you been using tips from a women’s magazine to seduce me?”

Jeremiah considers denying it but knows it’s no use.

He may or may not have made notes in the margin.

“Yeah?”

Bruce asks, “Me,  _ exclusively _ ?” to which Jeremiah rolls his eyes.

“No, I’m seducing you  _ and _ the entire lacrosse team, I’m a very busy guy.”

“It’s just—you have this one crossed out, and—“ The bed shifts when Bruce peeks at Jeremiah over the edge, eyes bewildered. “When did we go lingerie shopping?”

Jeremiah stares.

Then Bruce gives this incredulous, very un-Bruce-like snort. “Wal-Mart? You took me to Wal-Mart to shop for boxer-briefs for the purpose of  _ seducing  _ me?”

Jeremiah shrugs against the floor.

“Not that I’m not flattered by all this…  _ effort _ , but you do realize—” And then Bruce pauses, like he might not finish, fingering the edges of the magazine paper instead. Jeremiah’s about to protest that with a manner of indignation, but Bruce eventually concludes in this small, reluctant voice, “I’ve been pretty much stupidly in love with you from day one?”

Jeremiah doesn’t know what to say.

_ Love _ ?

“Are you _ sure _ ?” Jeremiah sort of thinks he’d notice something like that.

Now Bruce rolls his eyes, “Yes Jeremiah, I’m sure—also apparently a masochist, because you’re kind of an asshole, you know?”

“Yeah.” That he’s been one to Bruce makes Jeremiah sad.

“Don’t be sad,” Bruce insists. “You don’t always mean to be, it just has more impact—on me—than others? Or something.”

“You wouldn’t even look at my ass,” Jeremiah accuses.

Bruce balks, pulling himself closer to the edge, and rants, “What are you talking about? I’m  _ always _ looking at your ass, Jeremiah. I need an ass intervention. I have to, like, distract myself with other things just so I  _ won’t _ become a total assoholic. You have a hole in your pants, by the way. In the back pocket of the dark wash jeans? I’m always picking up your change.” Bruce then nods pointedly to the pile of quarters and dimes that’s always left on Jeremiah’s desk, just beside his computer.

Jeremiah is flabbergasted. Like the threads of his very reality are unraveling in some way. He gapes up at Bruce and swears, “I never noticed.”

“I know.” And now it’s Bruce who sounds sad, flopping back onto the bed.

Jeremiah clears his throat, maybe so when he speaks, it won’t sound as loud and earth-shattering as it feels to admit, “For what it’s worth, I have…  _ feelings  _ too.”

After a long moment of Jeremiah’s fidgeting, Bruce breathes, “For me?”

“I’m not good at expressing them.”

“Well yeah.” Bruce laughs before breathing, “I’ve been worried.”

“Worried?”

“That this is just… sexual for you.”

The silence is palpable—thick—and Jeremiah just feels so  _ stupid _ . All this time  _ pining _ and plotting, and Bruce’s been staring at Jeremiah’s ass? And he’s  _ in love  _ with Jeremiah? And Jeremiah is ruffling his hair and giving him awkward hugs?

“Bruce?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not,” Jeremiah promises. And then, because it seems like the thing to do when two people who are enjoying orgasms from one another have  _ feelings _ , Jeremiah decides, “You should be my boyfriend.”

In a pause that seems to stretch on for years, but is actually probably only a few seconds, Bruce softly agrees, “Okay.”

Jeremiah adds, “And have sex with me all the time.”

Another laugh, “Okay.”

“And do my essays for History.”

“Jeremiah,” Bruce sighs, all long and burdened, but with a smile audible in his voice. “Get off the floor and come try out #26, okay?”

“The one with the pillows?” Jeremiah sits up and peeks over the bed in an attempt to read from the open magazine. “And then you’ll do my essay?”

Bruce smirks. “And then I’ll try getting to that fourth finger again.”

 

Move #15: Say you’re going to take a nap, but strip suggestively. Let him find you naked and ready.

Oswald enters whistling, head nodding along to whatever is playing on his MP3 player.

When he sees Jeremiah’s face, he freezes.

The whistling dies.

He pulls an earbud from his ear. “Yikes, you’re mad.”

Jeremiah agrees, “Yes.”

“At me?”

“Yes.”

“It’s kind of scary.”

Again, Jeremiah agrees, “Yes.”

“What did I do?”

Jeremiah produces a large, crinkly silver bag, which is  _ empty _ . “Care to explain this?”

Oswald worries his lip, shrugging. “They were good?”

“I had plans for these.”

“Whatever, I’ll buy you more.”

“I need them  _ now _ . Tonight. In one hour. Can you do that, Oswald? Can you magically reproduce an entire bag of Hershey Kisses in under sixty minutes without devouring them as if they are, in fact, the only sustenance available on planet fucking Earth?”

Oswald laughs, “Nope.”

Jeremiah’s nostrils flare as he crushes the bag in a fist, and Oswald’s laugh transforms into a gulp.

“You’ve been a diva lately, Jeremiah. Have you given any consideration to  _ getting laid _ ?”

Which was the exact wrong thing to say, so Jeremiah reaches for the nearest semi-heavy item Oswald’s shoe, of course, and chucks it at his head.

Oswald ducks and flees the room, and Jeremiah is left sitting there, on the sofa, with no Hershey Kisses.

Oswald just  _ ate _ Tip #19.

Tip #20 was ruled out when Jeremiah discovered just how much roses cost, and he wasn’t even particularly attached to that one, because a trail of rose petals to the bedroom? Girly and stupid, and Jeremiah had thought, well.

At least Hershey Kisses can be eaten afterward?

After Jeremiah  _ finally _ got laid, that is.

It was practical.

But now they’re gone, and he has no rose petals, and Bruce will be here in an hour, and Jeremiah doesn’t know how to  _ seduce _ him into promptly and thoroughly  _ fucking _ Jeremiah, because they’ve been “boyfriends” for like almost two months, and Jeremiah—Jeremiah  _ loves _ getting finger-fucked by Bruce more than just about anything, but Jeremiah is ready to get fuck-fucked, and Bruce—

He keeps skirting around it.

Jeremiah  _ must _ seduce him.

Jeremiah bursts into his room and flips frantically through the tattered  _ Cosmo _ .

Jeremiah’s already used all hand-related moves.

Jeremiah has given numbers 27 and 28 commendable effort, but Bruce’s just usually  _ behind _ Jeremiah when Jeremiah is orgasming, so any  _ deep gazes _ of emotional significance are missed.

Bruce doesn’t watch sports, so #23 is out of the question.

Jeremiah figures his best bet is #15, and then he resolves to buy a new issue of  _ Cosmo _ because this one has been exhausted to the point of shame.

Bruce struts in at exactly ten, all clean-shaven and perfect-haired and tailored and tall and—

Jeremiah sighs.

He’s  _ so _ getting laid tonight.

“Where is everyone?” Bruce asks, falling beside Jeremiah on the couch.

“Out.”

Bruce’s eyebrows rise at that, his arm lifting and lifting until it’s draped behind Jeremiah’s shoulders, resting on the couch there. “That so?”

“We are completely  _ alone _ .”

Bruce grins and mouths along Jeremiah’s jaw, nipping the sensitive spot where face turns to the neck. “What should we do?” he asks against Jeremiah’s skin, hand already groping for Jeremiah’s crotch.

Jeremiah stands, rigid, and looking over his shoulder, declares, “I’m going to take a nap, actually.”

Bruce’s face falls, head snapping back in shock. “A  _ nap _ ?”

Jeremiah lifts one shoulder before walking away, removing his shirt as he goes. He tries to do the slow stripping thing, but the truth is, Jeremiah’s room isn’t far enough from the couch to merit it. He has to slow his step when he realizes he was basically in a sprint and is already a foot away from his door.

_ Aw fuck it _ , he thinks, and just throws off his shirt right there, in his doorway. Then he drops his pants, looking behind him while bent over, and Bruce is staring at Jeremiah, but he’s—

He looks kind of mad.

Jeremiah yanks his jeans off one foot, but loses his balance and has to catch himself on the frame of the door, face flushing red as he disappears inside.

He gets naked, lies on his bed, and waits.

Jeremiah experiments with a few different poses. First, on his side, hand propped on a palm.

You know.

Classy.

But then, Jeremiah looks down, sees his dick kind of flopped unflatteringly over his thigh, and decides against that.

Second, Jeremiah lies on his back, but that seems boring, so he lifts onto his elbows, stares at his toes and waits.

But he decides that he wants there to be  _ no mistaking _ exactly what it is he desires, so Jeremiah throws all caution and dignity to the wind and gets on all fours.

Ass up.

Head down.

Jeremiah gets comfortable feeling the air on his exposed—and already well-lubricated—skin.

He’s already stretched himself.

Jeremiah wiggles his ass in the air, grinning.

He waits.

...and waits.

Looks over his shoulder at the door.

Stares at his pillow again.

Picks at a loose thread.

That’s when Jeremiah hears the door opening. His face breaks into a wide grin as he bows his back, feels his ass cheeks spread obscenely.

He might even moan—you know. For atmospheric effect.

There is a horrific scream.

A bag of Hershey Kisses lands on the floor with a crinkly  _ pop _ .

Jeremiah screams back, covers his crotch, and leaps from the bed. “What are you doing,” he shrieks.

“What am  _ I _ doing?” Oswald repeats, pale-faced. “What are  _ you _ doing?”

“Whatever I want. This is my room!”

“I need bleach.” Oswald scrubs at his eyes, head shaking. “Inside my brain, right this second. Make it go away!”

Bruce  _ would _ choose now to come barging into the room, eyes big and panicked as he demands, “What’s wrong?” Of course, once he sees Jeremiah’s very naked and tense state, his panic transforms into a wry expression. 

“I thought you were taking a nap?”

Oswald turns to Bruce, shoving a finger at Jeremiah. “Bruce, I’ve seen things. Appalling things!”

“You can’t seriously be this dense,” Jeremiah insists, mouth agape. “Number fifteen, remember? With the. And I took off my clothes. Before. And then the nap.” Jeremiah points needlessly at the bed. “I was waiting for you.”

Jeremiah is mad—mad and mortified and red and—he wants a hole to magically appear so he can promptly crawl into it and  _ die _ .

Oswald’s eyes grow so big, Jeremiah worries they might fall out. “You were doing  _ that _ for  _ him _ ?”

“Like I don’t have to put up with you and Ed, and the noises,” Jeremiah shoots back.

“But my eyes, why?” Oswald asks rubbing at them as if to get the image out. 

Bruce crosses his arms over his chest, lips set into an angry-thin line. “Yeah, Jeremiah. Please enlighten us as to why you’re sitting in bed, naked, waiting for me.”

Jeremiah gapes openly at Bruce, shrieking, “Because you won’t fuck me!”

“Ohmy _ god _ ,” Oswald covers his ears and retreats from the room, calling behind him. “Enjoy your candy, I’m leaving. I need  _ Eternal Sunshine _ levels of mental help after this. Ed, Ed, help my eyes, my ears!”

After he’s left, Bruce and Jeremiah just stare at one another, Jeremiah sulking, Bruce still inexplicably hostile.

“We haven’t had sex yet,” Jeremiah mumbles, and he’s rather compelled to bring up that frequent sex  _ had been _ a vital prerequisite to their change of relationship status.

Bruce shoves a finger at him, eyes livid. “You never asked or talked about it, Jeremiah! You can’t just seduce me every time you want to get off. I know this might sound like crazy talk to you, but two people in a relationship? They have to eventually like,  _ mutually agree to do it _ . God, it’s called communication! Do you only read the portions of  _ Cosmo _ that get you laid?”

Jeremiah thinks for a moment. “Yes.”

He didn’t think to read the other parts because well he figured friendship would carry over into romance and work its way out. And the seduction part was the part he needed help with the most, at least that was what he thought, apparently he was wrong, and he’s even worse at social graces than he had previously estimated, which is saying something.

“Well, it doesn’t always work like that!” Bruce says, “Some things are too important to not be said aloud. And sometimes—sometimes there’s a fine line between seduction and manipulation, just so you know.”

And then he leaves.

Like, there’s for real flouncing and stuff. His coat is all billowy.

So Jeremiah is naked and still a virgin, and how is that even fair or like, remotely possible? He has to put on clothes now and—does Bruce even know what an unnecessarily lubed asshole is like? It’s slippery and uncomfortable, is what it is.

Also, he feels really bad, because the word manipulation reminds him of Jerome, and not something he ever wanted to be associated with, he never wanted any word to apply to both of them.

But Jeremiah rages around the dorm and eats half the bag of Hershey Kisses before Jeremiah decides that he’s not going to take this.

Jeremiah is a person.

He storms through campus like that—nostrils big, and he tells himself that he’s not all wrong here and that Bruce apparently sucks at communication, too, because Jeremiah doesn’t even know what he did wrong, and seduction is nothing like manipulation anyway, right?

But then Jeremiah realizes they’ve had a fight and he pauses right there, halfway between their two dorms.

Jeremiah and his boyfriend are fighting.

What if Bruce doesn’t want to see him? What if Jeremiah fucked up too bad? What if—even if Jeremiah was totally in the right to want some sexing from his uber hot billionaire boyfriend—Bruce won’t care?

If Jeremiah is right, will it even ultimately matter if Bruce is  _ gone _ ?

Well, obviously not.

Jeremiah turns and stomps back to Kirkland. He decides this is a problem not even  _ Cosmo _ can solve, and even if it could, Jeremiah has a hunch that Bruce maybe might not want to be seduced at this particular point in time.

Maybe he wants to be  _ romanced _ .

 

It’s raining two hours later when Jeremiah arrives at Bruce’s dorm, which is apt.

He shakes the water from his hair and squints up to where he approximates Bruce’s window to be.

The light is on.

With a nod, Jeremiah presses ‘play’ and lifts the boombox over his head, because Jeremiah knows nothing of actual real-life romance only what the movies supply.

Finding it wasn’t easy. No one owns a boombox nowadays unless you count Harvey in 284L who has unhealthy levels of affection for the ‘80s, and Jeremiah does, because Harvey has approved this as a classic no-fail romantic gesture.

“If this doesn’t get you laid, there’s no hope for you,” he had told Jeremiah.

The soft sounds of Peter Gabriel’s voice come crooning through the speakers. It sounds loud to Jeremiah—also, apparently to the small group of passersby who pause to gawk at the spectacle like they might take out their picture phones in the very near future—but Jeremiah wonders if it can be heard all the way up  _ there _ and he cranks the volume.

He’s drawing a lot of attention.

The camera phones make an appearance.

Someone—male—is laughing.

Someone—female—elbows them.

A girl comes to stand beside him, follows his gaze to the window and she waits there with him, bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. More girls join the fray, a couple guys. Jeremiah had anticipated something a little more intimate, but whatever.

Everyone is waiting for Bruce.

Just then, Peter’s voice begins to sound a lot less croony and a little more ominous. Jeremiah lowers the boombox and frowns at the borderline satanic-voice emerging from it. He smacks it on the side and one of the girls breaks the silence.

“I think the rain got inside.”

Jeremiah looks at her and back at the boombox, hitting it harder, even though it doesn’t help. “It hasn’t even gotten to the chorus yet.”

“You could just go up and talk to him,” someone else suggests, only Jeremiah had never specified he was doing this for a guy and also the voice is uncomfortably familiar.

Jeremiah spins around and Bruce’s there, drenched hair, little droplets falling from his lashes. “You—you’re supposed to be up there.” Jeremiah points at the window as if to punctuate this, confused.

The small group pivots to Bruce, some surprised, but most grinning in anticipation. Jeremiah had no idea his generation could be so excitedly voyeuristic.

“I was getting the usual you’ve-been-an-ass-to-me supplies,” Bruce explains, pulling the top of a liquor bottle from a soggy paper bag.

“Oh.” Jeremiah shifts awkwardly but eventually presses ‘stop’ because Peter’s singing about eyes and light and heat is getting creepy. 

“It’s a romantic gesture,” he explains of the boombox, and Bruce nods.

“I used my tiny brain to deduce that.”

“Your brain’s not tiny,” Jeremiah argues. “It’s just operating differently from mine, and I’d prefer if we could remedy that without a preventable separation.”

Bruce lifts an eyebrow.

“I mean…” Jeremiah deadpans, “Please don’t break up with me.”

Bruce’s face seems to soften, but it’s effortless like maybe he was finding it difficult to appear angry at all. “Come upstairs,” he sighs, pushing past everyone.

Jeremiah looks at the crowd as he cradles the boombox beneath his arm, their disappointed, unison sounds disappearing behind him as he follows Bruce inside.

“Does this mean you forgive me?” Jeremiah asks when they’ve entered Bruce’s room, both dripping messily onto the floor.

Bruce turns to him and tiredly says, “Yes.”

“Does this mean we can have sex now?”

“No.” He’s looking angry again.

So Jeremiah kind of is, too. “Seduction isn’t manipulation and also you suck at communication, too and I over-applied lube and now whenever I walk it feels funny.” Jeremiah adds, “And I’m sad.”

Bruce blinks at him before taking a deep breath, and Jeremiah knows this. 

Bruce is making a list, deciding which to tackle first. He goes chronologically. 

“When used in moderation, no, seduction isn’t manipulation, but when it’s the only tool a manipulative person—don’t give me that look, you know it’s true sometimes, Jeremiah—when it’s all you do, it starts  _ feeling _ manipulative, okay?”

Jeremiah frowns. “So what am I supposed to do, just... ask politely?”

“No—yes—sometimes, Jeremiah, I don’t know, just.” Bruce collapses into a chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sometimes, it should just happen naturally. And other times, seduction is nice. But other times, for the big stuff, like—like for example, this? Our first time?” He gives Jeremiah a significant look and concludes, “It shouldn’t be only on your terms. Maybe you could give me a say in it before... persuading me, you know?”

“Oh.” Jeremiah thinks he gets it. “Oh.” He’s pretty sure. “ _ Oooooh. _ ” No, he totally gets it.

“See what I mean?”

“Because I had a lot of time,” Jeremiah realizes. “To plan and prepare, and you had nothing.”

“Yes.”

“I planned our first time without you.”

“Exactly.”

“You want it to be like, special and so on or something.”

“Sure.”

Jeremiah is having an epiphany. “I’m having an epiphany.”

“Does it include something about an abuse of power?”

“No, I already had that one.” Jeremiah paces, very focused. It’s right there, he’s on the cusp of grasping something very important, and then—“I don’t think I have to seduce you anymore.”

Bruce throws his hands in the air. “That’s what I’ve been saying!”

He turns to him, a little thrown. “You’ll have sex with me. Without pretense.”

“Duh.”

“That’s—” Well, it’s baffling is what it is. Without his seduction technique, Jeremiah is just some awkward guy who sometimes runs into things because he’s so busy staring at his toes and contemplating innovative inventions. Strip away all the pretense and Jeremiah isn’t a smooth motherfucker, he’s just—

He’s just Jeremiah.

“You like me,” Jeremiah realizes.

“Of course I like you, Jeremiah.” Bruce rolls his eyes but then looks away, adding, “I love you, I told you that.”

And he had, but the thing is, it’s almost more monumental to Jeremiah that Bruce likes him. You can’t choose who you love. You don’t have to like who you love. Jeremiah loved his mother and even his brother at one point, cause it was a given, but he doesn’t like them at all. Obviously, this type of love is different, but the sentiment still applies.

“I never said it back,” Jeremiah remembers.

“I noticed.” Bruce looks at him and it’s not expectant in any way, not like a prompt, you know, for Jeremiah to go ahead and spit it out so he can get laid and Bruce will be happy. 

Actually, Bruce simply smiles, sort of sad, but ultimately accepting.

Jeremiah doesn’t have to say it back.

But he totally does. Then he has to add, “I’m not saying it because your eyes get big and sad when I don’t, but because it makes me sad to see it, since I love you and that apparently comes with the territory—and is also incredibly  _ annoying _ , so please use it sparingly, because I’m starting to understand that whole abuse of power thing better.”

Bruce snorts, but he’s smiling, even though his face is turned to the window, Jeremiah can tell, because his cheeks are like enormous. “I’ll try to not be sad, for you.”

“I’d appreciate it.” And after a beat, “And I promise to use my moves more responsibly in the future,” he teases.

They share a look and Jeremiah lowers himself gingerly onto the bed, grimacing when his ass cheeks glide against one another.

Bruce is, regrettably, observant. “You’ve really got—?”

“Lube all over my ass?”

Bruce’s staring distractedly at the point between Jeremiah’s legs when he nods.

Jeremiah nods. “Yes.”

 

So it goes like this:

Jeremiah and Bruce open the whiskey and start drinking. Then they get naked. Well, there’s talking and other crap in between those two points, but let’s focus on what’s important here.

Sex is going to happen and stuff.

Jeremiah doesn’t even have to fret about it or prepare for it or ask nicely for it, because they’re making out and rubbing against each other and there’s this whole thing with gazes and some weird weightiness on the whole thing that sort of makes it clear what’s going down.

Besides Bruce, Jeremiah means.

“I’ve never done this,” Jeremiah informs him.

Bruce’s already got two fingers in Jeremiah’s ass, eyes bright-glassy, lips kiss-swollen-slick as they pop off his erection. “No? Well, yeah, I mean. Me either. At least not with, you know guys.”

“Good.” Jeremiah isn’t equipped to deal with the implications of that since he’s too busy almost-getting-laid.

There is the usual sucking and fingering, only this time they stop before it gets really good, which would be a bad thing, except that Bruce has condoms and he’s staring between Jeremiah’s legs, which are splayed to either side of him, and Jeremiah is still kind of humping up into nothing, so he probably looks like a total slut for it, which is basically the case.

“You’re so hot like this,” Bruce says, eyes transfixed. “You have no idea how you look right now.”

Inside, Jeremiah preens but all that emerges for real is “Unghkhggk.”

And also his eye might twitch.

He lifts his knees for Bruce, who puts presses in, and it doesn’t hurt—Jeremiah’s practically had all five of Bruce’s fingers up there—but it is a little overwhelming, and Jeremiah has to stop Bruce from just sliding into home base, because he has to open his mouth and say, “Hnnggyu,” which is really mid-anal-speak for,

“Ohmygod. Give me a sec.”

 

Bruce complies, only now it’s his eye that’s twitching and he kisses Jeremiah and they share a laugh when he slips out, but it’s less of a ha-ha-this-is-funny laugh and more of a ha-ha-don’t-fucking-do-that-again kind of laugh.

When they can, it’s deep and perfect, and in the middle of Bruce driving into him, Jeremiah pushes him over and reverses their positions, riding Bruce. 

There are orgasms, messy and frenzied and slippery and Bruce says into Jeremiah’s ear when he has his, “Yggghunng,” and Jeremiah agrees into Bruce’s when he has his, “Uuuhhhgggnnf.”

It can’t be more than minutes later that they’re laying side-by-side, still sticky and messy-haired and loose-boned, barely having caught their breath even, that they’re passing the bottle of whiskey back and forth again because... well, why not?

Jeremiah has to wonder, “So that was what you were waiting for?” and Bruce looks confused so Jeremiah adds, “That was the  _ special _ sex?”

Not that Jeremiah didn’t enjoy it, it’s just...

“I did things,” Jeremiah says, annoyed. “I did really undignified Peter Gabriel things, Bruce. Not to even mention that I considered sprinkling rose petals in places however briefly, and—getting drunk and fucking me missionary is your version of special first-time sex?”

Bruce’s face turns guilty-red as he gulps his paused mouthful of whiskey. “I didn’t have a lot of time, and. You were. With the being wet. And all lubed up, and. Don’t look at me like that! I don’t have women’s magazines to get sex advice from.”

He finishes with a bitter huff, but Bruce does this thing with his mouth. It’s all slanty and self-effacing.

Jeremiah rolls his eyes, and if he presses himself closer to Bruce then it is  _ not _ cuddling. It's just, you know, after-sex physical contact. 

“The sex was perfectly adequate, stop being unnecessarily disappointed with yourself.”

“I could have done rose petals,” Bruce mutters into Jeremiah's hair.

“To be fair, I probably would have laughed at you.”

Bruce demands, “I can be smooth, okay?”

Jeremiah nods earnestly, “Of course,” but vows to make Oswed Nygmapott’s new monthly  _ Cosmo _ subscriptions accessible to Bruce, just in case.


End file.
